Bahamas refutes US TV ‘terrorists’ report

Trinidad Express:-The Bahamas government has rubbished a report on the American television network MSNBC that the terrorist group, ISIS, has members in the Caribbean Community (Caricom) country.

Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell in a statement late Sunday said he had held discussions with Prime Minister Perry Christie, the Attorney General as well as the leadership of the Royal Bahamas Police Force, “all of whom are responsible for the country’s national security, and they have no knowledge of any such terrorists or group of terrorists or any individual terrorist that is related to ISIS or any other terrorist organisation in The Bahamas”.

Mitchell has described the MSNBC report as “rubbish”, adding that the Bahamas mission in the United States “has been asked to reach out to US counterparts, to MSNBC and the Mr (Malcolm) Nance himself, to find out what the source of the allegation is. The mission has been asked to ask for a retraction forthwith.”

Reporting on the decision by United States President Donald Trump to sign an executive order banning citizens from seven countries, namely, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, an MSNBC contributor, Malcolm Nance, described as an expert in security and terrorism, indicated that the United States has “not banned terrorists from Brazil”, adding:

“ISIS has dozens of members from Brazil or Trinidad or The Bahamas who have more terrorist members than any of those other countries.”